The Demon of Conformism (Selected Passages) [Volume: 6(1987), pp. 285-297]

Cross Currents 6 (1987)
A Yearbook of Central European Culture
THE DEMON OF CONFORMISM
Dominik Tatarka
I have crashed.
Against my better judgment, but in the name of holy certainties,
I first acknowledged and confessed publicly to the authorities that I was
a traitor to the people; then I even persuaded my allies that I was a dangerous enemy. My first-born son and my wife were astounded. When I returned
home from the public execution where I had done away with myself, my
closest relatives begged me to stop playing the role of a traitor, at least
at home. But I wanted to be a man of principle no matter what. I knelt
before my son and I knelt before my wife, and I asked them in the name
of all that was most sacred to them to forgive me for my treachery. My
dear ones tried to soothe me, to calm me as if I were a sick man, but I
insisted on what I had stated publicly. I was trying to prevent my own
division into the private and public man, for I knew that with that division
madness begins. My dear ones could not bear living with a traitor who
clung to his treachery as if to a principle. They began to seek and found
different associates, associates who were in one way or another crippled.
I do not know how, but they were pulled into the public trial of the
traitors. They were sentenced. And I, in the name of my sacred principles,
requested the most severe punishment, demanding that my wife and son
be put to death. After this action, all that remained of me was a principle,
a terrible principle: dependence and conformity. You can understand
that after this I was attached to life only by the thread of this principle.
I, Bartholomew Boleraz, former writer, once upon a time the ostensible
conscience of my people, soared with the general spirit of times on the
wings of time, like a little balloon, like a little bubble. I understand, now
I understand that I could not continue flying with the times in this way.
A sudden storm rose up and cast me to the earth. Our helicopter crashed
into a soggy open field. In that instant my innocent attache case, crammed
with conference papers, went into swift motion and, like a saber, lopped
off the top of my cranium.
Finally my head had opened. My brain splashed out like the contents
of a goblet of wine. I fell from the helicopter and like a lover pressed my
face into the fragrant tilled earth.
Flying in the two-seated helicopter with me, the former Boleraz
(fortunately there were no more places), had been Valizlost Matai, a highranking official (also former) in the ideological establishment.
Adolf Hoffmeister, Dominik Tatarka. 285
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